While we did plenty of historical testing to try to confirm we were on the right track, there’s always some uncertainty when a new system is released into the wild for the first time. We released quite a lot of projected info for each team, but we’ll focus on team win totals and conference win odds for all FBS teams.

Conference and Division Win Odds

In each of our BCS conference previews (links to which can be found in our 2011 Big East preview), we used the preseason projections to pick one or two ‘Best Values’ — actual ‘Win Division’ or ‘Win Conference’ futures bets offered at an offshore sportsbook that our projections suggested might be worth backing.

Boy, were they.

If you had bet one unit on all ten “Best Values” you’d have walked away with 19.3 units of profit at the end of the year, nearly tripling your money:

Conference

Team

To Win

Odds

Implied%

TR Pred%

Result

Net

Pac-12

Oregon

Division

5/4

44.0%

53.8%

WIN

+1.25

Big Ten

Iowa

Division

7/1

12.5%

20.6%

x

-1

Big 12

Oklahoma St

Conference

9/1

10.0%

16.9%

WIN

+9

Big Ten

Illinois

Division

10/1

9.1%

17.7%

x

-1

Pac-12

California

Division

10/1

9.1%

13.0%

x

-1

Big 12

Missouri

Conference

14/1

6.7%

17.0%

x

-1

ACC

Clemson

Conference

16/1

5.9%

13.0%

WIN

+16

Big East

Connecticut

Conference

22/1

4.3%

9.6%

x

-1

SEC

Kentucky

Division

25/1

3.8%

8.3%

x

-1

ACC

NC State

Conference

28/1

3.4%

9.9%

x

-1

Total

1.1 correct

1.8 correct

3 correct

+19.25

Most of the value we highlighted was in relative longshots, which meant we only needed one or two successes to make the portfolio profitable, and we got three. Here are the three correct picks, along with some snippets we wrote back in the preseason:

Oregon to win Pac-12 North Division (5/4) — We’re as surprised as you are. Rarely would you expect to find any value in betting one of the top ranked teams in the nation to repeat as division winners — defending division champs and highly ranked teams are usually both overpriced. Why not in this case?

Oklahoma State to win Bg 12 (9/1) – Vegas is very confident in the Sooners, to the point where other odds are undervalued. Oklahoma State by most measures is a borderline top 10 team, it makes sense that they have better than 10% odds of winning the conference.

Clemson to win ACC (16-1) — The market seems to have placed such a premium on Virginia Tech and Florida State that many of the other teams appear to be reasonably valued. We project Clemson as the third-best team in the conference, only around a point worse than Virginia Tech.

Of course, some of these look kind of silly in retrospect, as well:

Iowa to win Big Ten Legends Division (7/1) — With Nebraska so heavily overrated there a multiple teams with decent odds on this half of the conference. Iowa is the best of the bunch, though.

You win some and you lose some. Hey, as long as you win enough…

Team Win Totals

Across our various projections-related blog posts — mostly the conference previews and a Stat Geek Perspective post — we published 46 projected team win totals that were paired with win total over/unders from offshore sportsbooks. (We published projected totals for all teams, we just didn’t find all teams listed at sportsbooks).

To make a long story short, our projections did very well, as our win total was on the correct side of the Vegas line around 65% of the time:

Conference

Team

Vegas

TR

Actual

Correct Side?

SEC

Alabama

10

9.8

11

no

Pac-12

Arizona

6.5

6.9

4

no

Pac-12

Arizona St

8

7.7

6

YES

SEC

Auburn

6.5

8.1

7

YES

Big 12

Baylor

6.5

4.6

9

no

MWC

Boise St

10

10.9

11

YES

ACC

Clemson

7

7.7

9

YES

Pac-12

Colorado

4

3.8

3

YES

SEC

Florida

10

8.3

6

YES

ACC

Florida St

10

9.1

8

YES

SEC

Georgia

8

7.5

10

no

ACC

Georgia Tech

6

7.2

8

YES

Big Ten

Iowa

8

7.8

7

YES

Big 12

Kansas St

5.5

5.7

10

YES

SEC

Kentucky

6

6.5

5

no

SEC

LSU

9.5

7.4

12

no

ACC

Miami FL

8

7.2

6

YES

Big Ten

Michigan

7

7.3

10

YES

Big Ten

Michigan St

7

7.4

10

YES

SEC

Mississippi St

7

7

6

no

Big 12

Missouri

7.5

8.7

7

no

Big Ten

Nebraska

10

9.1

9

YES

Big Ten

Northwestern

7.5

5.4

6

YES

Ind

Notre Dame

9

7.1

8

YES

Big Ten

Ohio State

9

9.3

6

no

Big 12

Oklahoma

10

9.6

9

YES

Big 12

Oklahoma St

8

8.5

11

YES

Pac-12

Oregon

9.5

10.6

10

YES

Pac-12

Oregon St

7

5.4

3

YES

Big Ten

Penn St

8

7.4

9

no

SEC

S Carolina

9

8.3

10

no

Big East

South Florida

8

7.3

5

YES

Pac-12

Stanford

8.5

9.4

11

YES

Big East

Syracuse

6

5.4

5

YES

MWC

TCU

9

10.5

10

YES

SEC

Tennessee

6.5

5.9

5

YES

Big 12

Texas

8.5

7.3

7

YES

Big 12

Texas A&M

8.5

8.2

6

YES

Big 12

Texas Tech

7

6.7

5

YES

Pac-12

UCLA

5.5

5.4

6

no

Pac-12

USC

7.6

7.7

10

YES

ACC

Virginia Tech

10

9.5

11

no

Pac-12

Wash St

4.5

2.8

4

YES

Pac-12

Washington

6

4.4

7

no

Big East

West Virginia

9

9.1

9

no

Big Ten

Wisconsin

9

8.7

10

no

Total

Yes 30-16 No

Now, many of those totals were presented with odds other than -110/-110, so it’s not as if we were dominating Vegas. But it was at minimum a respectable showing.

So, have we convinced you we know what we’re doing over here? If so, and you’re going to compete in a Bowl Pick’em or are planning on wagering on some of the games, make sure to check out our 2011-2012 college football bowl games section, complete with bowl predictions, bowl betting picks, and bowl pick’em advice and picks.

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